Muffins for Everyone

First Published May 20, 2010

Update: I've accumulated several recipes now, for gluten free muffins. The recipe I refer to on the Live Gluten Freely site is no longer available, as the site is no longer there. And the link to Betty Crocker's recipe is still good; it's at the end of the post. And soon, I'll update with a new post on making muffins that everyone can enjoy. 

Thanks for reading. September, 2025

Original Post: While still learning how to bake gluten free, I attempted muffins. They were overly crumbly or undercooked or the centers caved in. I just couldn't get it right. This was a great loss to all of us, as we all loved muffins.

Betty Crocker's Gluten Free Yellow Cake mix came to the rescue. Using the mix along with 1/2 cup of yellow corn meal and a few other ingredients, I made the most delicious strawberry muffins of my entire cooking life.

The recipe, which is actually for blueberry corn muffins, is posted at a site called Live Gluten Freely, a goldmine of information on eating gluten free. I merely substituted strawberries for blueberries, chopping the berries into small pieces and adding it to the batter.

I also used Betty Crocker's Gluten Free Yellow Cake mix to make carrot cake. That, to, was delicious. That recipe can be found on the Betty Crocker website, courtesy of Live Gluten Freely.

As I collect recipes and tips to meet the diversity of diets in my household, I always have in mind that what I do is more than just cook. For my son, his diet is the only treatment for his celiac disease. There are no medicines available to prevent the damage the gluten protein can do to his body. A gluten free diet is his only option to obtain and maintain good health.

For my husband, a low-fat, low-salt diet is the primary element in maintaining a healthy cholesterol level, along with prescription meds. Because he cannot tolerate statins, the synthetic pharmaceuticals often prescribed to control cholesterol, the right diet is as important to his health as it is to my son.

My daughter, the vegetarian, is a healthy young woman. Her decision to follow a vegetarian diet is as much about her own moral compass as it is about good health. As her parent, I honor and respect her decision.

As more people become aware that their diets are tied to more than just "What's for dinner?" more of us become contemporary cooks, having to diversify our meals to meet everyone's dietary needs.

Thank goodness for Betty Crocker's Gluten Free Yellow Cake mix. The fat and salt content for prepared muffins is reasonable so my husband can eat them. They're gluten free so my son can eat them. And my daughter isn't vegan, so she can eat them as well. For this chief cook and bottle washer, that's one easy fix.

Disclosure: The author is not affiliated with Betty Crocker or received any compensation or free samples from Betty Crocker.
Further reading:
Betty Crocker Carrot Cake Recipe

Forget the Salt and Add the Herbs

First Published May 18, 2010

Update: This post holds true today. Herbs play an important role in taste and can be used to reduce salt intake. We use very little salt even now, and are the healthier for it.

Thanks for reading. September, 2025

Original Post: Salt is thought of as the ultimate seasoning and if you watch Food Network, you'll see the chef hosts tossing quantities of salt into their dishes as they cook, and then again when plating them up.

"Good Lord," I mutter, "That much salt would kill us."

The human body requires a certain amount of sodium, about one to two teaspoons a day. That may seem like a very minute amount, but to your kidneys, it's just about right. Your kidneys may eliminate excess sodium, but if you're consuming five to six teaspoons a day, your kidneys won't keep up. Water retention sets in, resulting in high blood pressure. High blood pressure leads to heart and kidney problems.

After my husband's heart surgery, the doctors and nutritionists warned us off salt. I feared the food I served would be bland. My husband salted food even before he tasted it. I would have to wean him off salt.

Well, thank heavens for herbs.

The only salt in my homemade chicken noodle soup is in the broth. That's less than a 1/4 teaspoon because I make my own chicken broth to control the fat and salt content. Instead of salting the soup, I add dried thyme. Thyme enhances the natural flavor of foods, including broth. It's a natural substitute for salt.

Sage, shown in the photo to the left, has a pungent aroma and a strong, earthy flavor to it. Dried sage rubbed into a pork roast before cooking means no salt necessary, during cooking or when it's served.

A dried herb mix of sage, rosemary, oregano, basil and parsley is the perfect seasoning blend for Italian meatballs. Add the herbal mix to the raw ground turkey and bread crumbs, cook the meatballs in the slow cooker in a homemade red sauce and serve up a low sodium plate of spaghetti and meatballs.

I grow a selection of herbs in my garden: rosemary, thyme, basil, oregano, sage, parsley, dill and lemon balm. I dry the herbs myself. This not only saves me money, it ensures the food I serve won't be bland.

My husband no longer salts his food, not only because I will nag if he were to do so, but because he no longer wants that salty taste. In his own words, "Salt is too salty. You can't taste the food."

Olive Oil Cake and Cereal

First Published May 3, 2010

Update: The gluten-free market, the 'clean eating' market, and the 'bake it from scratch' market are all changing, rapidly. But I've noticed in a couple of my local stores that these specialty items are sometimes no longer available. I guess it just depends on what's on social media at any given moment. When you have to cook in this contemporary way, these on-again, off-again trends can be disruptive.

Thanks for reading. September, 2025

Original Post: Baked goods are usually well received in my household and I like to try new things. I recently tried to bake an olive oil cake, a cake supposedly better for us low-fat dieters because there's no butter in it, just a healthy dose of olive oil.

Well, I made the cake and had a hell of time getting it out of the pan, but did manage, though it was a bit broken up. When my husband, that less-than-tolerant food tester, tried it, he said it was all right but tasted like it needed butter.

I did not consider the cake a success. This is something I've learned over the years, that to be a good cook you need to accept that not all your efforts will result in good stuff to eat. And you just have to let that go.

On the gluten-free front, General Mills is looking to get its share of the food sensitivity market. In stores now, you can find gluten-free Chex cereals. We tried the Cinnamon Chex, made from whole grain rice. It's very good and if you're not a fan of cinnamon, there's gluten free Corn Chex as well.

As the mainstream companies move in on these markets, I noticed that the mainstream supermarkets devote a little less room to the smaller pioneering companies' products, with one exception. Sprouts Farmers Market does not carry Betty Crocker mixes or General Mills cereals.

The convenience of having gluten-free packaged foods in the supermarket is undoubtedly a boon for us contemporary cooks who need to provide specialized diets for our loved ones. But are these giants of the food industry going to hurt the pioneers who so diligently worked to provide convenient mixes that are preservative and additive free?

What happens to these smaller companies, now that the Big Dogs are moving into the marketplace?

Foodus Interruptus

First Published April 26, 2010

Update: When you are the cook, the only cook, in the house, sometimes you just get tired of thinking about it.

Thanks for reading. September, 2025

Original Post: You may have noticed it's been too long since I last posted. It isn't my intention to neglect this blog, but I have been a bit busy with other concerns that have caused a foodus interruptus in my usual cooking routine.
Just to catch you up though, I will be posting over the next few days. I'm going to attempt an olive oil cake and then I'm going to make it gluten free. I'm also working on a recipe for gluten free soda bread that so far holds great promise.

On the vegetarian front, I'm starting to work with tofu, and my first attempt, a pasta sauce with tofu instead of ground turkey, was aptly described by my husband as "uneventful". The chocolate tofu pudding garnered only a bit more attention, probably because we could put whipped cream on it.

But good things are going to be coming out of my kitchen this week and I'm looking forward to sharing them with you.

The Low Fat Lifestyle

First Published March 23, 2010

Update: We've adapted to this 'cleaner' style of eating, but we've also eased up. For example, we do occasionally order a pizza or have take-out for dinner. We have found that it' a little easier, if we aren't too hard on ourselves. We just want to live to about a hundred.

Thanks for reading. September, 2025

Original post: Starting a low fat, low sodium diet wasn’t just a matter of changing the foods we ate. I discovered that it was also a change of lifestyle. I wasn’t just changing out red meat for white chicken breast, or adding extra vegetables to the dinner plate. Food was no longer just meals eaten at various times throughout the day; food was the stuff that could break us down and kill us, or keep us well, healthy and active for many years to come.

Once I started cooking without the fats and salts we had become so accustomed to I discovered that we had more energy, and we actually wanted to do things like go for a walk and exercise. We wanted to play basketball with the kids and putz around with the yard work.

Whoa. We were active adults. With this new-found source of energy, we found that our attitude toward food was changing. For the better.

The thought of eating a Grand Slam breakfast at Dennys or a sausage McMuffin now makes us queasy. A fast food burger would make me gag.

Where once dinner was a thick slab of meat with piles of mashed potatoes and gravy, it’s now a low fat, flavor packed pork and broccoli stir-fry. We eat smaller portions and taste the food. Really taste it. This new attitude toward food is a lifestyle change.

What makes some foods more heart friendly than others? Fat and salt content, and how the food is prepared. Red meat contains more saturated fat than chicken or pork. Shrimp contains more cholesterol than tilapia fish. Salmon has more omega-3 oils than cod.

Mashed potatoes made with 2 percent milk and salt free butter is better than mashed potatoes made with whole milk and salted butter. A baked potato topped with low fat sour cream and chives is a better side dish than fried potatoes.

Stir-fried vegetables seasoned with Chinese Five Spice are better than steamed vegetables smothered in butter. Sliced apples make a better side dish than bread rolls.

Eating low fat, low salt foods isn’t just a change of menu. It’s developing a sense of how food is meant to be eaten, how starting with fresh, raw ingredients means you control what kind of fat goes into your body, how much salt you take in and how the food is prepared.

How you eat makes a difference in how you live. Your diet shouldn’t just be about your weight or your cholesterol levels. It should be about how you connect to food and how it connects to you and your life.

Chicken Stew and a New Attitude

First Published March 18, 2010

Update: The chicken stew recipe has undergone several changes over the years, as recipes do. I highly recommend the books I mentioned in the article, or ones similar to them. 

Thanks for reading.  Sept. 9, 2025

After my husband had his heart surgery, and the doctor informed us that his diet would need a radical overhaul to avoid death by clogged artery, I visited my local bookstore and bought three cookbooks:

• “American Medical Association Healthy Heart Cookbook”
• “American Heart Association Low-fat, Low-Cholesterol Cookbook”
• “Better Homes and Gardens New Diabetics Cookbook”

Though neither my husband nor I are diabetic, a friend lent us her copy of the New Diabetics Cookbook because it offered a host of recipes low in fat and directed at controlling cholesterol levels. I liked it so I bought a copy.

Armed with this arsenal of collected culinary know-how, I went to work.

One of the first recipes I tried was from the Healthy Heart Cookbook: Chicken and Vegetable Stew.


The recipe called for baby onions and baby carrots, celery, red peppers and tomatoes. It called for salt free broth, soybeans and pinto beans, Swiss chard, spinach and a sweet potato. It called for dill, basil and pepper. And of course, it called for lean chicken breasts.

There was blanching and draining and simmering and pureeing. There was slipping off skins and trimming away roots and slicing and dicing and cutting.

When I served up this culinary conquest, my husband took a few bites, murmured something about missing beef stew, ate a few more bites and resumed mumbling.

I kind of wanted to hit in the head with my big wooden spoon.

Instead, I offered up this bit of wisdom: “Eat it or die.”

The chicken stew, and subsequent recipes that have since been added to my provisional repertoire, has been modified a bit, but the principles behind making it a heart friendly meal remain the same. In my next post, I’ll talk about what makes a dish heart friendly, and how to flavor foods that are not “fat dependent”.

The chicken stew, by the way, was delicious. My husband’s taste buds, and attitude, just needed adjusting, and we’ll talk a bit about that as well.

The Low Fat Diet Venture

No more Mac 'n Cheese

First Published March 10, 2010

Update: Still need to stay on this type of diet. It's for life, really. But now I'm on a diet for pre-diabetes. But only weigh about 105 lbs. So now, I have to follow a diet designed for weight loss, while trying to gain weight. Now that's Contemporary Cooking!

Thanks for reading.  September, 2025

Original Post: My husband is prone to high cholesterol and heart disease. His triple bypass at age 48 was the catalyst for my learning how to cook all over again, to cook “fat free”. No more beef stew with rich sauce, no more beef and Yorkshire pudding, or chicken kiev with gravy. No more Indian fry bread. No more biscuits slathered in gravy or mounds of mashed potatoes made with whole milk and butter. No more pound cake, cookies, ice cream sundaes or sweet, sugary cakes dressed in velvety frostings.

I worried about serving up boiled chicken and rabbit food. But I wanted my husband to live, so I learned how to cook all over again.

But “fat free” in an inaccurate label. Your body still needs certain fats. I don’t cook fat-free. I cook low-fat. My husband and I follow a low-fat, low-sodium diet.

The point of controlling the fat in our diet is to manage cholesterol, the culprit of heart disease. But, as my husband and I discovered, when you lower your bad cholesterol, you may also lower your good cholesterol. So I had to learn how to make the bad go down and the good go up.

Even if your cholesterol isn’t spiraling out of control, you should control the fats in your diet. In the next few posts, I’ll include some low-fat recipes that don’t taste like boiled chicken and rabbit food. I’ll show you how to adjust your diet so you don’t sacrifice taste for good health.